


The Grump and the Harpy

by Selkit



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-27 07:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 16,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selkit/pseuds/Selkit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments in the relationship between two unlikely lovers. Loosely based on prompts from Tumblr fic memes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anniversary

**Author's Note:**

> These ficlets are not in any kind of chronological order, and each one is largely self-contained. Since the meme that inspired them has one prompt for every letter of the alphabet, I was going to wait until I'd finished them all and post them in alphabetical order...but then I realized that at my typical writing speed, that would probably take months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this was "Amuse Me: write a ficlet about one character trying to cheer another up." Mine turned into more of a ficlet about one character supporting another rather than cheering up, but I suppose it's the thought that counts.

Velanna has always been an early riser. Nathaniel is long since accustomed to waking up alone, the sheets tucked around him, her sleeping robes hanging neatly on the clothing rack near the door. 

But when she slips out of bed hours before dawn on one chilly morning, he knows this time is different.

He feigns sleep as she moves across the room, dressing and pinning up her hair, silent and dark as a shadow. Her movements are quick and purposeful as always, never slowing until she stands before the door, her hand lingering on the latch. 

He waits, listening as her hesitation plays out. A moment passes, then she sighs, the sound barely audible to his pillow-muffled ear. 

She strides to the bed, one hand darting out to press the sheets in around him, as though it’s just another normal morning. Her other hand moves to his face, brushing back a lock of hair mussed with sleep. 

He keeps his eyes closed and his breathing carefully even as she leans down. Her lips brush his forehead, and she whispers something in the old elvish tongue, the words hushed, thick and fierce. 

He waits until she starts to move away before he reaches up and catches her wrist, finally letting his eyes slip open. 

“I wondered if you were going to say goodbye,” he murmurs.

The slight hitch in her breathing is the only hint of surprise, vanishing in an instant as she snatches her hand back out of his grasp and plants it on her hip. 

“I wrote you a letter,” she retorts, and he can’t help but marvel a little at how quickly she can snap from tender to defensive. Her body tenses even in the blackness, her shoulders stiff, fingers digging against her hipbones. “It’s not as though I’m leaving forever. I just need to—”

“I know,” he says, softly. “Five years.”

She stills for a long moment before she speaks again. “You remembered.”

He nods, dark hair slipping across the pillow. Five years to the day since Seranni disappeared into the Deep Roads. Five years Velanna has spent searching, never giving in, even as hope fades with each passing day. 

Nathaniel pushes himself up on one elbow, seeking her eyes in the dark. “I could come with you.”

He can picture her expression perfectly: furrowed brow, pursed lips, eyes hooded with a mixture of vexation and fondness. “It’s my responsibility,” she says. “Not yours.” Her voice thins, growing bitter. “Besides, you know the others will kick up a fuss about two Wardens leaving on an unsanctioned mission. It’s a _lost cause_ , after all.”

Nathaniel stands, his fingers tracing a line from her shoulder to her jaw. “Then let them fuss.” The corner of his mouth tugs up. “You’re going whether they like it or not, and no one can argue that two pairs of searching eyes are better than one.”

She watches him for a moment before her lips stretch in a quick smile.

“Well, hurry up and get dressed,” she says, turning toward the door. “We haven’t got all day.”


	2. Drink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drink Me: write a ficlet about characters drinking, alone or with each other.

The elf stands in the center of the room, the firelight catching her eyes as they dart back and forth. She listens to the seneschal explaining the ritual, her head tilted and mouth drawn tight. 

“I remember this,” Justice says, his voice barely audible beneath the seneschal’s rumble. His dead eyes fix on the elf with an unblinking intensity that Nathaniel can’t help but find a little unsettling. “The Joining. It occupies a prominent place in Kristoff’s memories. From what I understand, those who participate often do not survive.”

“That is true,” Nathaniel replies, sparing the spirit a glance before looking back to the ritual. The chalice looms large in Varel’s hands, but if the elf feels any fear, she does not show it.

“She should be one of them,” Justice says. “She murdered innocents without cause. Perhaps the ritual will serve justice that the Commander did not.”

“Perhaps.” Nathaniel folds his arms, watching Velanna reach forward to take the cup in both hands. Her slender fingers look deceptively delicate as they splay against the chalice’s surface. “We’re about to find out.”

The elf’s eyes roll back in her head when she swallows the blood and lyrium, and Nathaniel finds his breath caught in his chest as Varel kneels next to her, laying a weathered hand on her brow. 

“She yet draws breath, Commander,” the seneschal announces, looking up at the senior Warden standing nearby. “She will recover.”

“Hmm,” Justice mutters.

Nathaniel turns to him, raising an eyebrow. “Disappointed?”

“It is unjust,” the spirit replies simply, though his mouth takes on a downward twist. “Do you disagree?”

“We’ve all done things we shouldn’t have, I suppose,” Nathaniel says. His eyes lose their focus, memories of his father playing in his mind. “Terrible things. Whether that means we deserve death for them, I couldn’t say.”

He looks back to the elf, watching the servants gather up her unconscious form. “But if nothing else, Velanna’s crimes were the result of a misunderstanding, committed because she was trying to protect her sister. I suppose she deserves as much of a second chance as anyone.”

Justice cocks his head, filmy eyes sharpening in a thoughtful expression. “Perhaps. Since she survived, she should atone for her misdeeds. If she pays adequate restitution, perhaps justice can be done without necessitating her death. I will discuss this with her, after she awakens.”

“Indeed?” Nathaniel can’t help but chuckle, clapping the spirit on the shoulder as he turns to leave the throne room. “I’m sure _that_ will go over well.”


	3. Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fight Me: write a ficlet about one character fighting with or against another.

No matter how many times he looks back, Nathaniel can never even remember what the argument was about. 

He remembers sitting at the little table in their room, sharpening his knives on the whetstone with a calculated focus, pretending to ignore her because he knows it will stoke her anger. He remembers Velanna’s face, flushed a bright glowing red that muddles her tattoos and makes her look like she’s been struck with fever. Harsh lines mar the skin at her eyes and mouth, and her eyes blaze with fury.

Her lips are moving, but he can’t remember the words. Not until his own voice interrupts her, cold and flat and dismissive, the antithesis of her bright-burning wrath.

“Enough,” he hears himself say. It’s more a growl than a word, low and dangerous. “Will you stop talking for just five minutes? Is a little peace and quiet too much to ask for?”

She throws her hands in the air. “And now the mere sound of my voice irritates him!” she shrills. He can hear her ragged breaths catching in her throat. “In Mythal’s name, why are we even together if my mere _presence_ is such a burden to you?”

Nathaniel scoffs, attention still fixed on his weapons. “You truly want to know? My family’s name lies in ruins. Let’s just say my options for companionship are limited at best.”

He half-expects her to incinerate him on the spot. Instead she does nothing, says nothing.

He finally looks up at her, eyes hard as the whetstone. All the blood has drained from her face, leaving her pale as the morning after a snowstorm. She stares at him, unmoving, wide eyes now bright with shock instead of rage. 

The apology springs to his lips, but his pride and stubbornness force it down. Deliberately he turns back to his work, the harsh ring of steel on stone filling his ears. He doesn’t look up when she turns and leaves the room, the bang of the slamming door echoing behind her.

* * *

She disappears for a very long time. The peace and quiet is deafening.

No matter how many times he tries to look forward, Nathaniel can never forget the last expression he saw on her face.


	4. Invitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Invite Me: write a ficlet about one character asking another character to join them.

“Would you like to go for a walk, my lady?”

Velanna’s head whips around, her face set in a glower even before her eyes pierce Nathaniel like an arrow. He stands at the room’s entrance, leaning against the doorframe and raising an eyebrow at her, his typical brooding expression replaced with something milder. 

It takes her a moment to realize it’s almost a smile. 

Several demands run through her head— _how long have you been standing there? Haven’t I ever told you not to sneak up on me? Why are you smiling like that?_ —but she pushes them aside and raises her chin. “With _you_?” she asks instead, tone as pointed as her ears. 

“That was the intent.” He pushes off the doorframe and takes a step toward her, and something… _inviting_ flashes through his eyes. 

_Definitely a smile now._ Velanna’s toes curl against the floor.

“Why would I want to do that?” she snaps.

Most people, she’s found, react to her with fear, disgust, or bemusement. But Nathaniel looks at her steadily, expression unchanging. 

“You miss the forest, don’t you?” he asks.

_"What?”_

“I grew up in this house,” he says. “I know how imposing and dreary it can be. I can only imagine how uncomfortable it might seem to someone who’s spent most of her life out of doors. The paths in the woodland beyond the courtyard are quite lovely, and you’re not going to find many Ferelden days with weather as pleasant as today.”

She stares at him, unnerved by the accuracy of his assessment. Her nails dig into her forearms, the sharp pain a welcome distraction.

“I have no interest in walking anywhere with a human,” she says, biting off the words. “Leave me be. And—and don’t ask again.”

She waits for him to wheedle, to bargain, to press her with annoying tenacity like Anders, who had only seemed more amused each time she shot down his advances. Instead he straightens, then bows slightly from the waist.

“As you wish,” he murmurs. “Good day, my lady.”

* * *

The months pass, and she takes to walking in the woods by herself. The solitude provides a welcome respite from the _shemlen_ bustling about at the Keep, and…

 _He was right_ , she admits to herself, grudging even in the privacy of her own thoughts. _The paths are lovely._

She finds him in the courtyard one evening, putting the last touches on an archery training session. The sun hangs low in the sky, spreading its red-gold rays across the horizon, and its warmth steals over her skin to loosen the knots in her neck and shoulders. 

“I’m going for a walk,” she announces without preamble as she comes up behind him. He turns to face her, and she taps her foot, waiting for his response.

“I hope you enjoy yourself,” he says, inclining his head. 

Velanna shifts her weight back and forth, folding her arms to keep from fidgeting, and finally huffs an impatient sigh.

“Do you want to come along, or not?” she bursts out. 

His face shifts, the lines softening, and she can once again see the smile playing in his eyes. 

“I would like that,” he replies. “Very much.”


	5. Kill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kill Me: write a ficlet about one character killing another.

“…Velanna? _Velanna._ ”

Nathaniel’s voice blurs, fading in and out. The world goes dark around the edges, and Velanna sways on her feet, tempted to close her eyes and just forget everything for a little while. 

But as usual, the pesky human can’t leave well enough alone. 

His fingers are cool against her neck, pushing back her matted hair and searching for her pulse. She frowns, gathers the last remnants of her strength, and pulls in a deep breath. The air is stale and choked with dust, but it’s enough to chase away the blackness, and everything sharpens again. 

“I’m _fine_.” She bats his hand away. “The air is thin down here, that’s all.”

Nathaniel lowers his hand, but Velanna doesn’t miss the twinge of relief flashing across his face. “Thin air or not, I hear it helps if you remember to breathe,” he says, voice deadpan. 

She glares at him, but can’t hold it for long. He steps closer, laying a steadying hand on the small of her back, and this time she doesn’t shrug him off. 

“Let’s keep moving,” she says. “We still have darkspawn to kill.”

Nathaniel’s quiet chuckle washes over her. Somehow it makes her clenched fingers loosen on her staff and her labored breaths come a little easier. “The Deep Roads will still be full of darkspawn long after we’re gone,” he says. “I think we can afford a few moments’ rest.”

“I don’t need to rest,” she protests, but her buckling knees betray her. She braces herself on the tunnel wall, face contorting in a wince.

“Fine,” she says. “Just for a few minutes.”

She lowers herself to the ground, gingerly, ignoring the protests in her aching joints. Her body feels decades older than it really is, years of combat and tainted blood exacting their price at long last. 

For the hundredth time, her fingers dart to the vial of poison in a pouch at her side, reassuring herself of its presence. Nathaniel doesn’t fail to notice, and reaches out to close his fingers around hers, pulling her hand away from the potion. 

“Not yet,” he whispers. It’s almost a plea. 

“Not yet,” she echoes. “But soon.” She attempts a sardonic laugh, but it comes out as a hacking cough instead. “You can only delay the inevitable for so long, human.”

It might not even be necessary, she knows. Her childbearing years would be behind her even if the taint hadn’t stolen her fertility—but the process of making broodmothers is far from an exact science.

It’s not a chance she’s willing to take. 

_And besides_ , she thinks, _I’m ready to see Seranni again. And my parents, and—maybe even Ilshae._

It isn’t what she might have hoped it would be. She’ll have no proper burial, no sapling planted over her grave, no one to mourn her except the human who somehow never walked out of her life. She has regrets, choices she wishes she hadn’t made, paths she shouldn’t have taken. _Only fools and liars claim otherwise._

And yet…

She leans against Nathaniel’s shoulder, one hand drifting back to the vial. Her thumb brushes it up and down, the cool surface warming under her touch. Her other hand tightens around Nathaniel’s, his warm and callused grip as familiar as breathing.

She’ll die free, under her own power at the moment of her choosing. And she won’t die alone.

Perhaps, in the end, she can ask for no more than that.


	6. Mourn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mourn Me: write a ficlet about one character mourning another character’s death.

“I’m perfectly capable of doing this by myself, you know,” Velanna says. “You don’t have to watch, if it’s too much for you.”

Nathaniel can’t deny there’s a small part of him that wants to agree, a part of him still searching for another path, for an unseen alternative waiting to be discovered. He looks at her for a long, long moment, burning every detail of her into his mind, wanting _this_ to be his last memory of her—whole and unbroken and beautiful, as fierce and full of life as she was the day he met her.

But that would be taking the easy, cowardly road. It’s not the Warden way, not the Howe way. Not _his_ way. 

He’s escaped many traps in his lifetime, won improbable battles, bypassed barriers deemed impossible to cross. But this is a riddle with no answer, a foe that can’t be defeated. This is a snare he willingly walked into years ago, the moment he let the darkspawn blood slip down his throat.

“Is that what you want?” he asks. Somehow his voice remains calm and steady, betraying none of his inner turmoil. He meets her eyes, green piercing grey, breath burning in his lungs as he waits for her answer. 

“Not in particular,” she finally says, and he exhales. Her expression sharpens on him, and a gleam flares behind her eyes.

“One might think you’ve been waiting for this moment,” she says with a snort. 

“Velanna—” he begins, the words bubbling up in his throat. _The only thing worse than watching you die would be knowing that you died alone—_

She shakes her head, silencing him with a gesture, and for just a moment her eyes soften. “I know,” she says. Her voice is almost gentle. “Enough talking. I’m ready.”

 _I’m not_ , he thinks. But it doesn’t matter. Time, taint, and darkspawn are ruthless masters. 

He can feel her weariness when he wraps his arms around her, but she kisses him as fiercely as she always has. His fingers tangle in her hair, thumb skimming the sharp jut of her cheekbone, and her heart pounds fast and strong against his chest.

“I should thank you, I suppose,” she murmurs when she pulls back.

“For what?”

“For making life at the Keep…” She tilts her head, searching for the right word. “Bearable.”

Nathaniel laughs in spite of himself. “It’s been my pleasure,” he whispers against her lips.

There are no tears, no desperate prayers, no howls of rage or grief. He loosens his hold on her reluctantly, keeping her in the circle of his arms as she brings the tiny vial to her lips. His hand slips up to cup the back of her head, fingers threading through her hair. 

A thousand phrases run through his head—apologies he never made, endearments he should have voiced—but none of them seem adequate. And then she meets his eyes and gives him a rare little smile, and he realizes that none of the words matter anyway, that she already knows everything he wants to tell her. 

It’s a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

He leans his forehead against hers and closes his eyes, and listens to her breathing until he can hear it no more.


	7. Offer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Offer Me: write a ficlet about one character giving another a gift.

“Here.”

Velanna jerks back from the page in front of her, eyes darting back and forth between Nathaniel and the small jar in his hand.

“What _is_ that?” she asks, wrinkling her nose at the faint earthy odor rising from the greenish-brown substance.

“Salve,” he replies, gesturing at her hand still curled around her forgotten book. “For your knuckles.”

Unthinkingly she jerks her hands back under the table, the motion automatic in spite of herself. She glances down at them, scowling at the dry flakes and red cracks running between her knuckles, marks of skin unused to bearing the brunt of a harsh Ferelden winter.

“Where did you get it?” she finally asks, distaste still plastered across her face.

“I made it,” he says, his tone matter-of-fact. “I spent much of my time abroad learning how to craft various potions.”

Her lip curls. “I was under the impression that most of those were _poisons_.”

“Some. Not all.” He gives a barely perceptible shrug. “Winters in the Free Marches were just as cold as they are here, if not more so. This particular mixture was useful on more than one occasion.”

Velanna leans back in her chair, managing to look down her nose at him even though she’s sitting and he’s standing. “And what assurance do I have that this is one of the non-poisonous concoctions?”

Nathaniel narrows his eyes at her, expression suggesting the sudden onset of a headache. “It’s a salve, Velanna. I’m not asking you to eat it.”

“You think me so naive?” she scoffs. “My people have many such poisons that can kill through nothing but skin contact.”

He makes a noise somewhere between a growl and a sigh, and reaches down to dip two fingers into the potion. “Here. See? No poison.”

Her grudging _hmph_ abruptly cuts off as he extends his other hand, beckoning at her.

“It will help,” he says. “I promise.”

Somehow her hand finds its way into his, her fingers stiffening as he smoothes the potion over her reddened knuckles.

“It _burns_ ,” she complains, hoping the words disguise the fact that her breath seems to be caught somewhere in her throat.

“That shouldn’t last for more than a moment or two,” he says, releasing her hand.

The sting is already starting to fade, replaced by a not-unpleasant tingling, but she keeps her chin raised. “Well,” she says. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt. If nothing else.”

His responding soft chuckle is becoming all too familiar. “You’re welcome, Velanna.”


	8. Tell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell Me: write a ficlet about one character confessing something to another.

She purses her lips, staring down at the human beside her. Dawn is just breaking, and pale sunlight slants through his bedroom window to catch on the angles in his face, casting shadows across his skin.

It’s the first time she’s found herself staying throughout the night instead of returning to her own quarters. It has been…more pleasant than she expected. 

A dark layer of stubble covers his chin and cheeks, and she squints at it, running one finger across the bristles. He stirs under her touch, eyelids fluttering, and lifts a hand to rub his eyes before fixing her with a bleary stare.

She watches his eyes gradually sharpen on her face, and waits for him to make a surprised remark, or ask her why she’s still in his room. Instead he only smiles, a slow, lingering expression, and somehow it warms her far more than the blankets. 

It’s—strange, still, and unsettling and _different_ , and so she narrows her eyes at him and crosses her arms over her chest.

“Lazy human,” she chides, letting the tartness slip into her tone. “It’s a good thing we’re not in the midst of a darkspawn attack, or you’d be missing your head before you even woke.”

He reaches for her hand, and presses his lips to the inside of her wrist. “It’s true,” he rumbles, voice still thick with sleep. “I confess. I’ve never been a morning person.”

She snorts. “Obviously.”

“However,” he says, his eyes warm as he presses another kiss to her knuckles, “with a few more mornings like this, perhaps I could become one.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” she says, yet somehow she finds herself unable to keep from returning his smile.


	9. Haunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haunt Me: write a ficlet about one character watching over another.

The young elf feels much better, now that she’s dead. 

It’s been…a while, now. She’s not sure exactly how long. Long enough to reduce her to flesh and bones and scraps of cloth, blue-white eyes staring at the ceiling, skin shot through with veins like spiders’ webs. Just another corpse among dozens—hundreds, perhaps. The Deep Roads have a tendency to collect them. 

She tries not to think about what she left behind. It wasn’t much, after all. A few meager possessions, a few friends whose names are harder and harder to remember. Better to be here, and whole again, rather than back _there_ —slowly rotting even while she still lived, betrayal and tainted blood consuming her from the inside out. 

Yet even though her body is at rest, her mind wanders. It remembers the sticky sap between her fingers, intended for an unsuspecting sister’s hair. It remembers long nights spent whispering beneath the covers, muffling giggles to keep from waking oblivious parents. It remembers the force of her kin’s wrath, the acrid smoke carried on the breeze in the Wending Wood, hallmark of a terrible vengeance. 

And most of all, it remembers her sister’s stubborn pride.

 _She would burn a thousand human villages to find me._ Her thoughts blow in the wind like the ashes of her sister’s victims. _Neither of us, I fear, will ever find peace._

* * *

“Seranni.”

She turns around, her head tilting to one side in mimicry of a gesture she’d used in life. “Yes,” she says. Her mind slows, crystallizes on the word. “That was my name, once.” 

“I knew your sister.”

Everything goes still, and she stares hard at the spirit in front of her. 

“How?” Her thoughts jumble, twisting into a cacophony like a brewing hurricane. “Did you _possess_ —”

“No.” The spirit’s voice is stern. Impassive. “Not her. I’ll show you.”

Her mind fills with images of her sister clad in the blue and silver armor of the Grey Wardens, her hands and staff alight with magic, raining down death on hordes of darkspawn. Fighting by her side are dwarves—and _humans._

One human man in particular is a near-constant, dark and stoic in contrast to her sister’s barely-contained energy. Seranni’s mind sharpens on the looks and gestures passing between them as each image flashes by.

It’s subtle, but unmistakable. Even in death, Seranni knows her sister.

“Is this real?” she demands. She draws herself up, facing the spirit head-on. It can do little to hurt her now, after all. “Or are you playing tricks on me?”

“I am no demon.” The words come sharp as a whipcrack. “To deceive you would be unjust.”

Her mind whirls. She wants to ask _how_ and _why_ , but pushes the questions aside. In the end, only one thing matters. 

“Then she’s all right?” The memories of sunlight filtering through smoke in the Wending Wood begin to fade. “She hasn’t run herself into the ground looking for me? She’s…found other people to call clan?” She thinks of the dark-haired human. _Perhaps even closer than clan…_

“She still searches for you,” the spirit says. “But she no longer wanders.”

Seranni’s restless thoughts begin to slow, a strange sort of calm stealing over her. “If you see her again, will you tell her of my fate?”

“Things are not so simple,” the spirit says. Its tone is almost guarded. “I do not know if our paths will cross again. But if they do…then yes. I will tell her.”

“Thank you,” Seranni says. “Everything she did, she did for me. She deserves to know. To have a chance at peace.”

 _And then,_ she thinks, _perhaps both of us can stop wandering._


	10. Value

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Value Me: write a ficlet about one character telling another how they feel about them.

“What are you singing?” Nathaniel asks.

His voice is little more than a drowsy murmur, yet Velanna almost jumps out of her seat, her head whipping around in a golden blur. He suspects the glare she levels at him would be enough to curdle an ogre’s blood. 

“You’re supposed to be _asleep_ ,” she growls. A crimson flush crawls up her neck all the way to the tips of her ears.

He pushes himself up on one elbow, letting the sheet slip down his chest, and tries to hide his smile. “Considering we’ve been sharing a bed for months, I’m surprised I can still fluster you.”

Velanna draws herself up like a viper ready to strike, crossing her arms and raising her chin. “Unless you _preferred_ sleeping alone, you would be wise to shut your mouth, _shem_.”

“Back to _shem_ , am I?” He puts on a wounded expression. “And all for the crime of failing to fall asleep at the appointed moment. Can you forgive such a grievous offense?”

She rolls her eyes and looks back at the journal in front of her, pointedly ignoring him. Her shoulders are rigid enough to snap, and she taps the pen in a restless rhythm against the table, eyes darting back and forth over the pages.

“Velanna,” he says, gently. “Whatever it was, it sounded…soothing. For a moment, I thought I was dreaming.”

“Liar,” she mutters, shooting him a quick, unhappy look. “My clanmates used to claim it was my voice that drove the gods away.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Your clanmates often heard you singing?”

“No. Not _that_ , at least.” The flush returns, deepening. “It’s…an old love song, or part of one. I didn’t even know I was singing it,” she adds quickly, glaring at him again as though daring him to challenge her. “Sometimes while I’m writing, without thinking, I—it helps me concentrate.”

“I understand.” He nods. “My brother used to hum while practicing his sword-fighting. Unlike you, however, he couldn’t carry a tune.”

She snorts, but some of the tension eases from her shoulders, and the pen ceases its rattling against the table’s edge. Nathaniel leans forward a little further, the sheet pooling at his waist. Velanna’s eyes dart to his bare chest, and she catches her lower lip between her teeth. 

When he speaks again, his voice is softer, almost husky. “Why were you singing only part of the song?”

“The rest was lost long ago.” She blinks, dragging her eyes back to his face. “Like so much of our lore.”

“Perhaps you should fill in the missing verses,” he suggests. “That’s what you’re writing in that book, isn’t it? New stories for your people?”

“Oh, I see. And should I use _you_ , my human lover, as inspiration for a Dalish song?” She narrows her eyes at him, curling her lip. “Don’t think I can’t see right through you.”

He only smiles, shrugging one shoulder. “Inspiration can come from many places. And, perhaps, the words can hold the same value no matter what inspires them.”

“Hmm.” She sits back in her chair, eyes returning to her book, and waves one hand at him in an absentminded gesture. “Go back to sleep, human.”

He drifts off to the sound of her pen scratching against the page. When he wakes, her candle has burned down to a pool of wax, and her voice rises and falls in a soft melody.

He lies still, listening to the elvish words, then lifts his head to look at her.

“What does that mean?” he asks, voice rough with sleep.

She watches him a moment before walking to the bed, and his hands circle her waist as she moves to straddle him. When she leans down to his ear, the candlelight catches her smile.

“I’ll show you,” she whispers.


	11. Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Break Me: write an angsty ficlet.

Sigrun hears the commotion long before she sees it. Voices—some pitched high with alarm, others low and tense and urgent—and scuffling feet and the steady hum of magic. She can smell the trouble, too: the familiar musk of mingled dirt and sweat, but over all, the sharp scent of blood.

Lots of blood. 

She increases her pace, muttering a little under her breath. The hallways in the Keep always seem to stretch on _forever_. Whoever designed them clearly didn’t have short dwarven legs in mind—

But she banishes architecture complaints to the back of her mind as she rounds the corner, barreling into the room the Wardens turned into a makeshift infirmary. In its former life it used to be one of Rendon Howe’s old studies, Nathaniel once told her. Not that it matters much at the moment. 

Inside, it’s all chaos. Controlled chaos, but chaos nonetheless. Healers scurry back and forth, their faces set, mouths pulled into grim lines. On the far side of the room, a flurry of white catches her eye as one Warden snatches bandages from a cupboard, while another rushes past with hands full of fresh poultices. 

Sigrun sidesteps out of the healer’s path and pushes up on her tiptoes, craning her head to see around the throng clustered in front of the pallet. The bodies shift and dart around each other, and Sigrun catches sight of blond hair stained red, and skin so pale that the purple tattoos stand out like bruises.

She swallows.

Velanna doesn’t look good. One of her arms is bent at a not-quite-right angle, and her head droops against the bed, eyes closed, lips slack. Sigrun isn’t sure she’s breathing. The dwarf’s eyes drift down, and even her iron-clad stomach clenches a little at the pool of blood collecting beneath the pallet, thin rivulets branching off and snaking around the healers’ feet like streams feeding into a lake.

She blows out a deep breath and turns around, eyes scanning the room’s edges until she finds Nathaniel, staring straight ahead with his arms locked at his sides and his hands curled into fists. His armor’s breastplate is slick with blood, and Sigrun doesn’t have to ask to know it’s not his.

He doesn’t glance up as she approaches, his face like stone, an almost jarring contrast to the frenzied movement filling the room. Sigrun stops next to him and turns back to watch the healers work, not speaking, only waiting.

She doesn’t need to ask what happened. It could have been darkspawn, or bandits, or werewolves. It could have been a High Dragon, for all she knows. It doesn’t matter right now. 

They keep waiting. Sigrun counts seconds in her head, and doesn’t mind that she loses count somewhere around five hundred. Better that than counting the blood drops somehow squeezing out through the healers’ fingers as they press down on Velanna’s abdomen. 

Finally, she looks up at Nathaniel. He hasn’t so much as twitched since she entered the room. If she didn’t know better, she might say he’s been holding his breath all this time. 

“Hey, Grumpy,” she hears herself say. “You know she’s gonna be okay, right? She’s way too stubborn to let something like a little blood loss take her out.”

He still doesn’t speak, but his expression finally shifts. His eyes close for a moment, and she hears him exhale, long and deep. 

“That’s good,” she says, because it feels right to keep talking. “She’s going to wake up any second, and it’d be bad if you were passed out from forgetting to breathe. She’d never let you hear the end of it.”

He snorts at that, and she thinks she sees his lips curl up, just a little. 

Another minute passes, then another, and another. The healers’ hands keep working, some pressing, some glowing, some wrapping bandages. Their faces betray nothing. 

When Velanna stirs, coughing weakly, Sigrun almost jumps. She straightens, craning her head to watch the elf’s eyes flutter open. Beside her, Nathaniel draws a sharp breath, and she can feel his whole body shudder as he releases it. He scrubs a hand down his face, heedless of the blood smudged in its wake. 

“You see?” Sigrun looks up at him, eyes twinkling. “What did I tell you?” 

He’s already halfway to Velanna’s side by the time the words have left Sigrun’s mouth, but he pauses, looking back over his shoulder. 

“Sigrun…” His voice scratches against his throat. “Thank you.”

She grins and shrugs, waving at him in a shooing gesture. “Get over there.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice.


	12. Ears

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I prompted Nate/Velanna and "ears" on the 2013 rendition of the Dragon Age Kiss Battle, but it was never filled, so by Andraste I'm gonna fill it myself.
> 
> Also written (loosely) for the Tumblr prompt Enamor Me: write a fluffy ficlet about characters trying to woo one another.

Nathaniel can tell something’s wrong as soon as he enters the bedroom.

Velanna sits at the table with her back to him, shoulders hunched, head bowed over her journal. Her hair lies loose and tangled over her shoulders, pulled free from its usual bun, and as Nathaniel draws closer he notices hairpins scattered across the table as though flung by an angry fist.

He stands still for a moment, watching her. Though he’s not close enough to make out the words on her journal’s pages (and knows she’ll pull it away with an indignant squeal if he tries), he can see the remains of sketches she’s drawn in the margins, each one scribbled out with violent strokes. Stifling a sigh, he walks further into the room, bracing himself for the inevitable storm.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, and tries not to sound too resigned. He’s not sure how well he succeeds.

Her reply is short and brittle. “Nothing.”

He folds his arms and waits. No more than a minute passes before she shoots him a sidelong glance, almost hidden by the curtain of hair across her face.

“You know I still haven’t forgiven you,” she says.

 _Here we go_ , he thinks. This time he makes no attempt to muffle his sigh. “Forgiven me, or the entire human race?”

“You.”

 _Wonderful._ “What have I done this time?”

She looks back down at her journal, drawing more thick black lines through another hapless sketch. “You said they were clownish,” she mutters, more at the book than at him.

Some of his irritation fades, replaced by momentary confusion. “What? Is this about your ears?”

“Of course it’s about my ears,” she snaps. The pen hits the table with a clatter as she tosses it down, lifting both hands to smooth her hair over her temples. Despite her fussing, Nathaniel can still see the pointed tips jutting through the thin strands.

He crosses the room and slides into a chair next to her, pretending not to notice as she flips the journal closed with a snap. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me why that upsets you so much,” he says. “Were you teased about your ears while growing up?”

She looks away from him, glowering at the wall. “It’s a childish and idiotic story.”

“You can tell me anyway.” Nathaniel rests his hands on the table, careful to keep his eyes on her face and not her ears. “If you like.”

Velanna heaves a sigh forceful enough to send one of the rejected hairpins skittering off the edge of the table. “I was young and stupid and had a crush on a boy in my clan. What?” she huffs at Nathaniel’s raised eyebrow. “Even I was once a girl with crushes.”

He hides a smile, his mind supplying him with images of her as an awkward moody youth, more likely to set boys on fire than to flirt with them. “Go on.” 

She glares, but it’s half-hearted. “He told me he didn’t care that my ears were a little bigger than normal. He said he liked them just fine anyway. And then he kissed me.”

“Your first?” he guesses.

She nods. “I was completely smitten, until I found him laughing with his friends, joking about how he’d only kissed me because he wanted to see if my ears were as huge and clownish up close. From then on my ears were the laughingstock of the clan.”

“Children can be cruel. Adults, too,” Nathaniel says. A small smile crosses his face, rueful and fleeting. “I don’t truly think your ears are clownish, Velanna.”

She snorts, eyes piercing him like thorns. “You stated it like it was a fact declared by Andraste herself.”

“I was trying to provoke you,” he admits. “It was, perhaps, a bit juvenile.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “You said _I_ was the one being juvenile!”

“We both were.” He remembers his irritation when he first entered the room, how he’d been ready to provoke an argument for no particular reason. “And perhaps still are, sometimes.”

He rises from his chair and steps toward her, reaching out to brush the hair back from her face, running his thumb along her uncovered ear. She tenses but doesn’t pull away, watching him out the corner of her eye like a wary halla.

“Just regular ears,” he says, and leans down to kiss the pointed tip.

“Nathaniel!” She squirms, lifting a hand as though to bat him away. “Stop it, that—”

The rest of the sentence disappears in a quick, unsteady breath as his lips trail down the back of her ear. She clears her throat. “That…feels rather good, actually.”

“Do you still want me to stop?” he murmurs, mouth hovering just above her earlobe.

“No.” Her breath hitches again, turning shallow when he nips lightly at the edge of her ear. “In fact, I’ll be very upset if you do.”

He grins. “It appears that old crush of yours missed out on quite the opportunity.”

“Mmm.” She tilts her head, eyes drifting closed, fingers clutching the table’s edge. “So it would seem.”


	13. Draw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Paint Me: write a ficlet about one character drawing a picture of another.

_“Nngh!”_

Velanna’s chair comes close to toppling backwards as she leaps up and shoves it away, tossing her pen down in disgust. The table wobbles slightly, but her journal remains spread open, the crisp white damnably _blank_ page still staring up at her. 

_Mocking_ her.

Across the room, Nathaniel looks up at the outburst, his own pen poised above his half-finished letter to his sister. “Something wrong?”

“I just can’t _write_ today.” Velanna spreads her hands, letting fire blaze to life in her palms. She cups her hands around the flames, her fingers wreathed in smoke. “I have all the words in my head, but somehow they won’t come out right on the page. It makes no sense.”

“Setting fire to the room probably isn’t the answer,” Nathaniel says dryly. “Perhaps you should do something else for a while, clear your head. Your journal will still be there when you’re ready to write.”

“My head doesn’t need clearing,” she grumbles, but she extinguishes the fire with a quick clench of her fists and slides back into her chair. 

Her inkwell sits precariously on the table’s edge, and she rescues it with a sigh, lining it up parallel to the journal’s pages. Across the room, Nathaniel leans back over his letter, and Velanna lets her pen trace the curve of his shoulder onto her journal’s page.

She’s always been good at drawing, ever since she was a child sketching halla foals on the parchment scraps her mother set aside for her. Perhaps she might have taken a tutor and developed the skill further had her magic not manifested, forcing her down the First’s path whether she wished it or not. She’d had little time for drawing under Ilshae’s hawk-eyed gaze and endless lessons.

 _Never mind that now._ Velanna pushes away thoughts of the old Keeper and her familiar disappointed expression, letting her eyes skim Nathaniel’s profile instead. His face is a study in concentration as his pen scratches across the page, his brow furrowed and his lip caught between his teeth. 

After a moment he shifts, lifting one hand to rub at his forehead, and Velanna gives a little yowl of protest.

“Hold still, _ma vhenan_ ,” she orders, the pen hovering in mid-stroke above the page.

Predictably, he does the opposite, lifting his head to shoot a curious frown in her direction. “What?”

“Hold _still_ , I said. I’m drawing you. Or trying to.”

“Ah.” He dutifully bends his head back over the page, the barest hint of a smile on his face. “Better?”

“It’ll do.” She chews her thumbnail absently, eyes darting back and forth between him and the page. “Just stay like that.”

“Am I allowed to breathe?”

Velanna pulls a face at him, wrinkling her nose. “Not for much longer, if you don’t stop with your smart comments.”

She hears him chuckle as he resumes writing. Her own pen skims across the page, quick strokes filling out the sketch—the curve of his human ear, the long prominent nose, the dark hair falling down his neck and over his shoulder—

“What was that you called me, before?”

“Hmm?” She frowns down at the drawing, concentrating on the details, hearing him with only half an ear.

“When you told me to hold still, you called me something elvish. It didn’t sound like any of the usual insults,” he adds, his tone turning wry. 

“Oh.” She clears her throat, her face growing warm and her toes curling against the floor. “It wasn’t an insult.”

When he speaks again, she can’t quite tell if he sounds amused, pleased, or resigned. “You’re not going to tell me what it means, are you?”

“No.” She slants a quick glance at him under her lashes. “Maybe later. There, it’s finished.”

He raises his head, watching her blot the excess ink from the sketch. “When the elves read your stories years from now, won’t they wonder at the drawing of a strange human mixed in among the writings?”

“It’s not staying in here,” she snorts, and carefully tears the page from the leather bindings. “Some things I keep for myself.”

“Not to fall victim to your flames, I hope.” His voice remains dry, but she can hear the smile beneath the words.

She runs her fingers over the edge of the page, smoothing the wrinkles, eyes thoughtful as she looks down at the drawing. “Time will tell, human.”


	14. Zip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zip Me: write a ficlet about one character dressing another, or the other way around (this can be used for shutting them up as well).

Nathaniel is already there when Velanna returns to their room late in the evening, still clad in his tunic and gloves, his hair windblown from hours on the archery range. His eyes warm and some of the sharp angles ease from his face when he sees her enter. It’s not quite a smile, but she doesn’t need it to be.

“How was your day?” he asks, leaning over to kiss her. 

“Fine,” she says against his lips, letting herself lean into his embrace for a moment. She digs her fingers into his shoulder when he begins to pull away. “Wait.”

He raises an eyebrow, but obliges. “Something the matter?”

In response she seizes his hands, peeling off one glove, then the other, tossing them to the floor. When she reaches for his belt, he goes still, his hands hovering near her hips. 

She risks a glance at his face as she unhooks the belt and lets it join the gloves on the floor. His eyes are already dark, fixed on her with the intensity of a hawk.

“Can I…?” he murmurs, fingers tangling in the fabric of his tunic.

“No.” She smacks at his hand out of reflex. “No touching anything unless I tell you, human.”

She hears him swallow, and his breathing quickens, the muscles in his arms twitching beneath his sleeves. Velanna’s fingers make quick work of the buckles spanning his chest— _why do human clothes have so many pointless buckles, anyway?_ —and then she grasps his shirt, giving it a sharp yank.

“Arms up,” she orders.

He obeys, and she tugs the tunic free from the waistband of his trousers, pulling it up and over his head. It’s a cumbersome bundle of cloth and leather and metal, and she growls as she flings it into the farthest, darkest corner of the room. 

His rumbling chuckle almost undoes her, and she steels her jaw, refusing to look at his face. 

“Boots,” she says instead, pointing at his feet. Nathaniel laughs again, leaning down to release yet more buckles. 

“You’ll let me take _those_ off, I see,” he says.

She plants her hands on her hips. “Did I say you could talk?”

He sets the boots aside and straightens, leaning forward until his lips almost touch her ear. 

“You didn’t say I couldn’t,” he whispers. 

His breath brushes her skin—the cursed human knows exactly where her sensitive spots are—and she has to suppress her shudder. She sinks her teeth savagely into her lower lip, taking a deliberate step backward. 

“I’m saying it _now_.” She raises her chin, finally snapping her eyes to his, and feels a little surge of satisfaction when he nods. 

She reaches out to rest one hand on his chest, trailing slowly down his breastbone, then lower, feeling his heart hammer against her fingers. When she reaches his trousers’ waistline she pauses, raising her other hand and letting it linger at his hips.

“Hmmm,” she says. One hand slips almost casually beneath the band. “How best to take these off, I wonder?”

His breath hitches, turning ragged, and she raises an eyebrow, looking up at him. He stares back down at her, every muscle tense, lips pressed together hard enough to turn them almost white. 

“All right,” she decides. “Get on the bed. On your back, both hands flat on the mattress.” She narrows her eyes at him. “I had better not see your fingers leave the covers.”

She watches intently as he moves, and when she’s satisfied she finally grabs the waistband and pulls, her own impatience getting the better of her. His smallclothes come away with his trousers, and she stands back to appraise her work, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Well,” she says. “That’s better.”

She climbs up onto the bed next to him, and when she leans down to let her lips trail a path down his abdomen, he hisses a sharp breath between clenched teeth. His fingers dig furrows into the sheets, and Velanna raises her head just in time to see his lips begin to form words.

“What did I tell you?” She shoots him a mock glare and moves to straddle him, letting little jolts of electricity crackle on her fingertips, dangerously close to his chest. 

He’s almost panting now, but he somehow manages to pull out an innocent look, meeting her eyes and shaking his head. _I didn’t say anything_ , he mouths.

“You were about to.” She gives him a zap anyway, just for good measure.

He _moans_ , long and throaty, and she’s not sure whether it’s from pleasure or pain or both. The sound of it makes her breath disappear, sudden heat surging through her, leaving her legs trembling like saplings’ leaves. She leans forward and presses her mouth to his, bracing herself against his chest, listening to the mattress creak in protest under his straining fingers. He cranes his head up off the pillow, his mouth searing under hers, and when he groans something that sounds suspiciously like her name she can’t bring herself to care about the broken rule.

She pulls back only when sparks start to flare in front of her eyes, and for a moment she rests her forehead on his chest just below his chin, and nothing exists but their mingling breaths and the rapid cadence of his heart. 

“I think,” she says after a moment, “I’m feeling generous tonight.” She lifts her head, presses a quick kiss to his neck. “You can talk now.”

He looks up at her with glassy eyes, his face flushed, his hair mussed on the pillow like a crumpled raven’s wing. 

“Let me touch you.” It’s half whisper, half growl and all plea, his voice hoarse and breathless.

She gives him a look. “Not yet.”

“Velanna—”

He draws out her name like a chord in a song, tremors barely audible on the vowels, and she can sense his control starting to fray.

“I’m not feeling _that_ generous.” She arches an eyebrow. “You can speak now, so speak. What do you have to say to me?”

“You’re a terrible person,” he mutters, but his eyes clear a little and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “And your ears are—”

“Nathaniel.” A note of warning rings in her voice.

“Lovely,” he finishes, and the smile grows a little wider. “I can think of several things I’ll enjoy doing to them, if you permit it, once I’m allowed the use of my hands.” He pushes himself up toward her, his lips hovering just behind her earlobe, and lowers his voice to a murmur. “And my mouth.”

“Mmm.” She tilts her head to the side in subtle invitation. “I think perhaps you should tell me more about that.”

So he does.


	15. Remember

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember Me: write a ficlet about one character trying to get another to remember them.

The fire burning in the shemlen stronghold’s throne room is the only spark of warmth in the place. The rest is huge and drafty, full of creaking floorboards and enormous arched ceilings waiting to collapse in a stiff wind. 

Velanna huddles closer to the flames, closing her eyes and letting the flickering light play over her face. The blanket draped over her shoulders is thin and scratchy, no doubt woven by some nameless faceless shem, but she pulls it closer anyway. It’s all she has to ward off the endless shivering.

_Shock,_ the healers had said when they examined her—when she’d finally calmed down enough to let them touch her. Her shivers intensify, her throat constricting as she remembers their soft clammy hands, their mindless blank almost-smiles, the false sympathy in their voices when they called her by name and told her everything would be all right.

_“Stop it,”_ she shrieks in her mind’s eye. _“How do you know my name?”_

Footsteps interrupt the memory, and she jerks her head up, every nerve jangling, magic poised on her fingertips. The fire flashes in her wide eyes, too-bright reds and oranges clashing at the edge of her vision, but she refuses to look away. Too risky to even blink. 

The footsteps stop as the human pauses a respectable distance away. Slowly, he kneels down until they’re eye to eye, his gaze never leaving her face. 

“May I sit with you?” he asks, his murmur barely rising above the crackling flames.

She shivers again. Maybe she never stopped. “Don’t come any closer,” she rasps. Her voice is still strange, hoarse from disuse, her throat dry and scratchy like it’s been coated with sawdust. 

He gives a single nod and lowers himself the rest of the way to the ground. She watches him pull the bow from his back, a cloth appearing in his other hand. His touch is careful, almost reverent as he begins to polish the weapon, running the cloth over the wood in long, smooth strokes. 

She studies his face in the firelight and remembers it, blurry and indistinct, one of the first things she’d seen when her eyes fluttered open. His hand had been on hers, large and warm, big enough to enfold all her fingers—until she’d jerked away, screaming and thrashing, and then the healers had rushed in and everything had turned to chaos. 

_“Where am I?”_ Her own voice echoes, rattling in her mind. _“Who are you? Get away from me!”_

“Is there anything I can get for you?”

His voice mingles with her thoughts, quiet and grave versus panicked and piercing. He doesn’t stare at her when he speaks, and she feels a spark of gratitude despite herself. The other shems in the fortress _look_ at her as they walk past, glances raking her like she’s a rat in a trap. They’re all faltering steps, hushed voices and pitying glances, the fire’s crackling not enough to drown out the sibilance of their rapid whispers. 

_Poor little elf girl_ , she imagines them saying. _Disappeared in the Deep Roads for three years and doesn’t remember any of it! Can you even imagine what must have happened to her down there?_

It takes a moment for her to realize the human’s hands have stilled, the bow resting in his lap. He is looking at her now, but expectantly—not pitying, not judging, not… _speculating._

“What?” It’s meant as a snap, but comes out as more of a croak. “What did you say? I—I didn’t hear you.”

“I was just asking if you need anything.” He pauses, and a half-smile crosses his face. It’s rueful and sad and _wistful_ , and it makes her heart skitter uncomfortably. “Aside from the obvious, I mean.”

She opens her mouth to say “not from _you_.”

“It’s cold here,” comes out instead. 

“Right, of course.” He shakes his head as he rises, irritated with himself. “Forgive me, my lady, I should have known. You always used to—”

He cuts himself off, and that same expression plays over his face again. He exhales, and she can hear his breath shaking, catching in his chest.

“I’ll be back,” he murmurs, and she watches the door long after he disappears through it.

_Lovers_ , he had said when she first awoke, though his eyes had spoken of something more, something that couldn’t be summed up in a single word. She remembers his eyes more than anything, the way disbelieving joy had given way to dread, and then to stark desperation when his gaze had locked on hers, searching for any signs of recognition. 

It’s _absurd_ , of course, a thoroughly disgusting lie—the thought that she, a Dalish elf and a former First, would ever dream of consorting with a human, let alone _loving_ one—

The door creaks open, and she jumps, ripping her gaze away and looking back to the fire. She doesn’t glance up at him until his footsteps stop several feet away. 

“This should help,” he says. A dark blue cloak lies folded over his arm, thick and plush and obviously more well-made than the thin blanket the healers gave her. He steps forward, holding it out as though to drape it over her shoulders, but stops short when she flinches. 

She sees his throat bob as he swallows.

“My apologies,” he murmurs, so quiet she can barely hear him. He extends his arm, the cloak dangling at his fingertips, and she darts forward to snatch it from his grasp.

It _does_ help, the rich cloth folding around her like a warm embrace. Her eyes flutter closed in relief, and she almost doesn’t notice his voice when he speaks again.

“I brought you this as well.”

She peers over the fabric to see him set down a mug several feet away from her. She waits until he backs away, then edges forward, wrapping her fingers gingerly around the handle. 

The liquid’s scent hits her with a jolt, triggering a rush of memories she never lost—mixing batches of cider over the fire and ladling it into cups, huddling close to Seranni inside the aravel on chilly nights, sipping the steaming drink and talking for hours—

“Where did you get this?” she demands, eyes snapping up to stare at the human. “This recipe? This is a Dalish drink; you shouldn’t know it.”

“I watched you make it,” he replies. “Almost every night.” Another faraway smile tugs at his mouth. “You had me mix it for you on several occasions when you weren’t feeling well, and I never could get the proportions quite right, so I don’t know how good it will be. But I thought it might help you feel more at home.”

“Stop _lying_.” Sudden pressure pounds inside her head, and she feels the cloak’s velvet shell crunch under her clenching fingers. “It’s preposterous to claim I would ever share such a thing with—with a _shem_.”

“Normally you didn’t,” he says. “You were always quite clear on where the boundaries lay with regard to your culture. The only time I ever made this for you was when you were too sick to leave the bed. I think your desire for something familiar and comforting overrode everything else.”

“A likely story.” She glares at him over the rim of the mug. “Or you and your fellow _shemlen_ raided a Dalish camp, slaughtered the people, then stole everything you wanted and trampled on the rest.”

“Velanna—” he begins, then stops, reining himself in. He sighs, and kneels down to look her in the eye. 

“I didn’t do that,” he says softly. “I wouldn’t. Ever. But I can’t give you any proof other than my word. And I know that isn’t worth very much.”

His eyes drift to the mug. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought—well, it doesn’t matter what I thought, I suppose.” His expression turns rueful. “Clearly I still have much to learn.” 

He extends a hand, gesturing at the mug. “I’ll take it away, if you want.”

She purses her lips, narrowing her eyes down at the drink, and takes a cautious sip. It _isn’t_ quite right—a little too much water, or not enough spice, perhaps—but it slips down her throat easily and leaves soothing warmth all the way down. If she closes her eyes she can almost imagine Seranni sitting next to her with laughter in her eyes.

“It isn’t terrible,” she says, and the human’s expression eases a little.

“That’s good to hear,” he says. “The first time I tried to make it for you, you nearly choked on it.”

She snorts, taking another sip before setting the mug down to pull the cloak tighter around her shoulders. 

“Very well, shem,” she says. “If you’re going to insist that you were my…” She trails off, not quite able to get the words out. “…That you know me, then you had best start at the beginning.”

He looks at her for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is as soft as his eyes.

“My name is Nathaniel,” he says. “Nathaniel Howe.”


	16. Cold Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get Me: write a ficlet about one character saving another.

Nathaniel can almost _feel_ the wall begin to crumble well before his other senses pick up on it. Hip-deep in darkspawn parts, bow long since exchanged for a pair of knives, he hears little other than snarls and shouts and the harsh ring of metal on metal. Blood, sweat and grime line the creases in his face, mat his hair and run into his eyes. He doesn’t see much but wave after wave of enemies plunging through the Keep’s defenses, turning his childhood playground to a blood-soaked battlefield. 

It starts as a rumble, building under his feet and raising the hairs on his arms, and at first he wonders if it’s another ogre before he hears stone begin to splinter. A single horrified shout rises above the clamor to echo across the courtyard—

_“Watch out!”_

He pivots, but the call isn’t meant for him. 

Velanna stands with her back to the wall a few yards away, teeth bared and hands blazing with fire, her attention focused on the smoking death throes of her darkspawn victim. Above her head, chunks of stone dislodge, chips and dust raining down around her. The fissure in the wall widens, the rumble giving way to a crack like a thunderclap, and _finally_ she turns as it begins to topple. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Nathaniel knows he’ll be too late even as he hurls himself forward, stretching his arms toward her as though skin and muscle and bone could ever have a prayer against solid rock. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her arms shoot up split seconds before his shoulder connects with her midsection, and it’s the last thing he registers before the world goes dark. 

When he opens his eyes, he half-expects to find himself in the Fade—or perhaps the Void, or wherever else the Maker’s seen fit to send his soul. Instead, all he sees is trees and dirt, fallen leaves crunching under his hands, and one very incredulous elf. 

“In Mythal’s name!” She shoves at his shoulder, although—he notes—not very hard. “What do you think you’re doing?” 

“That wall was about to turn you into mincemeat,” he says, pushing himself to his feet and squinting as he looks around. “Where…?”

“Did you forget I can transport from one place to another instantaneously?” she huffs. “Or did you think I was going to just stand there and let the wall collapse on me like some slack-jawed imbec— _oh_.”

Her voice pitches up, the words swallowed in a gasp of pain, and Nathaniel whips around to look back at her. Her face is contorted in a grimace, one hand pressed to her abdomen, and he can see telltale crimson stains beginning to spread under her fingers.

“Let me see.” He drops to his knees next to her, reaching to the small pack at his waist in search of bandages. The wound isn’t large, but the blood continues to come in a steadily widening flow. 

“Stop fussing,” Velanna says, voice still tight with pain. She bats at his hand, splattering red droplets across his sleeve. “Creators, human, why do you keep forgetting I’m a mage? I _do_ have some healing powers.”

“I mean no disrespect to your abilities, my lady,” he says, “but from my observation, you seem more skilled at taking life than at preserving it.”

She manages a smirk, but a fine sheen of sweat glistens on her face, and her breaths begin to rasp in her throat. Nathaniel presses his lips together, fingers twitching by his sides. 

“Are we very far from the Keep?” he asks. “Where did you take us?”

“Just _away_.” She forces the words out through gritted teeth. “I didn’t exactly have time to hand-pick the perfect destination. Now would you be quiet? This does require some concentration.”

“Then let me help.” He draws out the few bandages stored in his pack. “If I concentrate on stopping the bleeding, you can focus on healing the internal damage.”

“Fine.” She lifts her hand and he replaces it with his, pressing down on her abdomen and letting blood soak the bandages. She lets out another cry of pain, her head lolling back against the ground, and Nathaniel clenches his jaw. 

“Easy,” he murmurs, eyes locked on her face, disquiet coiling deep in the pit of his stomach. 

After a moment, her breaths slow, going quiet—too quiet. 

“Cold hands,” she mutters, making a vague gesture at his fingers pressed against her belly.

On an impulse, he takes her hand in his free one. “So are yours.”

“I have an excuse.” She coughs. “Losing blood.”

Her eyelids flutter before the words finish leaving her mouth, and Nathaniel gives her hand a sharp squeeze. “Stay awake, Velanna.”

She opens her eyes wide enough to glare at him. “Meddlesome human! Didn’t ask you to come with me.”

“Indeed, my apologies for trying to save your life.” He releases her hand, slipping his arm beneath her shoulders. “We can’t be that far from the Keep. I’m going to take you back so the healers can tend to you.”

That makes her eyes flare open. “Absolutely _not_ ; you are not carrying me anywhere like a sack of potatoes. I can walk.”

“You just sustained an abdominal injury—”

She wrinkles her nose at him. “If you would stop being so dramatic, you would see I’ve taken care of it.”

Nathaniel looks down, easing his hand off her abdomen. The gash is still red and ugly, standing out against too-pale skin, but the bleeding has slowed to a trickle. 

“Then I stand corrected on your healing abilities,” he says, and it’s difficult to keep the relief from his voice. 

She gives a tight, wan smile that turns to a wince as he helps her to her feet, then fades into a thoughtful look when they turn back toward the fortress. 

“What is it?” Nathaniel asks, fingertips resting at the small of her back. 

“Nothing, really.” Her voice hitches as she takes a careful step forward, then another. “I was only thinking that if you hadn’t thrown yourself under that wall after me, I don’t know if I would have returned to the Keep.”

He looks down at her, his step slowing to keep pace with hers. “Do you _want_ to go back?”

“I…don’t know.” She looks away, eyes scanning back and forth between the trees. Her bun is half undone, loose blonde strands falling limp across her neck and hiding her face from him. When she speaks again, her voice is guarded, tight with bitterness instead of pain. “Much of my clan would have happily seen me crushed under that rock.”

Her eyes dart to him, and he inclines his head, knowing it’s as close to _thank you_ as she can come.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves,” he says. “The Keep may not even be standing once we get back to it.”

She’s still pale, her skin sticky with sweat and her hands caked with her own blood, but she straightens anyway, her stride lengthening and her face setting in grim determination. 

“Only one way to find out,” she says.

They march on.


	17. Unbind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbind Me: write a ficlet about one character freeing another (whether from jail, from handcuffs, from a curse, etc).

Nathaniel’s perpetual scowl is something of a legend among the Amaranthine Wardens. _Brooding_ , go the whispers in the hallways. _Grumpy. Stony. Does he ever smile at all?_

But after years of letting him share her life and her bed, Velanna has become attuned to distinguishing what’s mere stoicism and what’s something more foreboding. 

She sees it in his distant, preoccupied expression when he comes to find her one evening, hears it in the carefully measured cadence of his words when he speaks. He reaches for her hand, wraps his fingers around hers like he often does, but his touch is like ice against her palm.

“Will you walk with me?” he asks. He lifts her hand to his mouth, brushes his lips over her knuckles, but when she seeks his eyes, his gaze drifts to the ground just over her shoulder. 

They stand a short distance from the Keep, in a clearing where Warden mages often go to train, an area for casting spells without fear of accidental collateral damage. Velanna wants to lift her chin and tell him to stop _dithering_ , to just spit out whatever’s rattling around in his head, but at any moment another Warden or two or three could come around the corner with their nosy glances and their unsubtle whispers.

And her life is _not_ a spectator sport.

“Fine,” she says. Her tone is brittle like glass, and she knows he notices. He can read her just as well as she can read him.

They walk the well-worn paths into the woods, the setting sun disappearing behind them as the trees close over their heads. Normally she finds the forest comforting, a touch of the familiar to smooth over the rough edges of her new life, but tonight it only feels strange and unwelcoming. The shadow on his face seems to deepen once they’re away from potential prying eyes, and Velanna comes to an abrupt halt. 

“This is far enough,” she says. “What is it?”

Finally he meets her eyes, and she sees a flash of regret. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I hoped to avoid alarming you, but…”

“I’m not alarmed.” She grits her teeth. “Just come to the point, human.”

“Very well.” He turns to face her, squarely. “I’ve been thinking.”

“You do that a lot,” she mutters. Always so _pensive_ , thinking rather than acting, ruminating and hashing and rehashing every little thing in his mind like a stubborn dog that won’t let go of a bone—it’s no wonder he has a reputation for brooding.

If he hears her, he makes no comment. 

“I know how important your people are to you,” he says. “I know your loyalty is to them first and foremost, before your loyalty to the Wardens, or—or to me.”

She frowns. “Yes, and?”

He takes a step toward her. The wind ruffles her hair, blowing her bangs across her forehead, and she can sense his desire to reach out and brush them away from her face.

But he doesn’t.

“I also know,” he says quietly, “that the Dalish birthrate is declining. And I know how upset you were when you learned of the taint’s effects on fertility.”

_Upset_ isn’t a strong enough word, she thinks distantly, but that doesn’t matter. It’s only a distraction, something to keep her mind from what he’s going to say next—

“I don’t want to be an obstacle between you and your people.” It’s little more than a murmur, but it feels like a stone dropping around her neck. “If you…if you want to find an elven man, have elven children…I’ll step aside.”

She draws a sharp, hissing breath. “Is this your way of saying that you want to end things, while conveniently making yourself look _noble_ in the process?”

“No.” She sees the spasm cross his face. “Absolutely not, and you know it. What I want doesn’t enter into it.”

Velanna closes her eyes and pictures herself with an infant in her arms, a babe with pointed ears, tiny hands, and wisps of blond-brown hair. She imagines telling the stories, teaching the ancient letters and words, singing the child to sleep with the old beloved songs every night.

“They—the healers—they told me that possibility died the moment I drank from the chalice,” she says. Her voice rings in her ears, hard and cold like iron. “I traded my future for the chance to save my sister.”

She looks up at him. “But if I did decide to try anyway, to leave you and take an elven lover, I wouldn’t need your permission.”

“I know.” This time he does reach up to her face, pushes the stray locks off her forehead and tucks them behind her ear, his fingers skimming the pointed tip. “I just want you to know where I stand.”

“I made the choice, long ago,” she says. “I’ll live with the consequences.” She pauses, pursing her lips. “You just happen to be one of them.”

“Hmm.” She doesn’t see his smile in the dim light, but she knows it’s there. “I’ve been called worse things.”

“Some of them by me.”

“Indeed.”

They continue down the path, side by side, and she pushes the pointed-eared child back to the darkest corners of her mind once more.


	18. Sickbed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taking a brief break from the alphabet-themed meme for a few Tumblr ficlets from a kiss meme. The prompt for this one was "eyelid kiss."

She’s the picture of misery, lying there in the bed with her limbs sprawled in every direction, sweat-darkened hair flung in a tangled heap across the pillow. All the covers are shoved back as though fabric is poison to her skin, and a trusty wooden bucket sits ready and waiting by the bedside. 

Nathaniel catches an unmistakable whiff of _healer_ on the air as he steps into the room, the sharp scent of their herbs mingling with the sour tang of draughts and potions. One of them had stopped him in the hallway, a grandmotherly woman who’d caught his arm and given it a firm pat. “Don’t you worry your head, dear,” she’d said with a knowing smile. “It’s nothing serious, just a spot of fever and some nausea. She’ll be right as rain in a few days.”

At the moment, she looks anything but, her wheezing breaths audible even from the doorway. Nathaniel crosses the room to sit on the edge of her bed, trailing his knuckles down her flushed cheek. 

“I would ask how you’re feeling,” he says softly, “but I think I can hazard a guess as to what your answer would be.”

Velanna gives a muffled groan in response, stirring under his touch and blinking up at him with bleary eyes. She stares at him for a moment before her brows draw together.

“Don’t,” she mutters, her voice thick. 

He frowns down at her, fingers pausing on her cheek. “Don’t what?” 

“Don’t kiss me. I know that look.” One hand rises a few inches off the bed, making a feeble gesture at his face. “I’m not sure whether I should be flattered that you still look at me that way even when I’m half on my deathbed, or revolted that you’d want to kiss someone who’s been vomiting all day long.”

“I see.” He smiles. “I think we can reach a compromise.”

His hand leaves her cheek to smooth her bangs back from her face, and he leans down to kiss her forehead, then her temples. He hears her sigh, the mattress creaking beneath her as she relaxes. 

“Close your eyes,” he murmurs. 

Her eyelids are already heavy, and they barely flutter at the touch of his lips. Her breaths deepen, coming slow and even. 

Nathaniel pulls back and combs his fingers through her hair, watching until her lips part in sleep.


	19. Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Kiss in the Rain."

It begins as just another overcast day—not a rare occurrence in Ferelden, after all—yet as he stands in the courtyard, Nathaniel can’t shake the cold, dark feeling settling deep in the pit of his stomach. 

As though sensing his mood, the clouds turn steely gray and finally burst, the sudden torrent stamping out the light morning mist. Around him he registers the exclamations of dismay, fabric rustling and limbs churning as the other Wardens seek shelter, but he doesn’t move.

Neither does Velanna. 

She stands like a statue with the rain dripping off her, turning her armor from blue to cobalt, seeping into the small pack slung over her shoulders. Her expression doesn’t change, her fingers tight on her staff and her eyes still fixed on the other Wardens. Waiting. 

Nathaniel’s disquiet coils and twists like a serpent, and he tries to smother it with logic’s chokehold. _Just another expedition_ , he tells himself. _Just another trip to the Deep Roads, like all the ones before. She’ll return in a month or two, like she always does. Like I always do._

Yet he knows it’s a lie, knows with cold certainty that a Warden’s end can come at any time, at the point of any blade or the tip of any arrow. The feeling is almost surreal, balancing at the edge of his consciousness like a dream, and for a moment he remembers being a little boy and blinking, squirming, rubbing furiously at his eyes to make the nightmares’ last traces go away. 

The call from the expedition’s leader startles him, and he reaches up with an unsteady hand to push sodden hair back from his face. No more than a few feet ahead of him, Velanna stirs, hoisting her pack, and looks over her shoulder to meet his eyes. 

“Wait,” he hears himself saying. “Velanna, wait.”

She isn’t usually one for public displays of affection and neither is he, but she doesn’t resist when he bridges the gap between them and pulls her into his arms, his mouth crashing down on hers. The kiss is warm and familiar as always, but her lips are cold—too cold—and he isn’t sure if it’s the rain or if it’s his mind taunting him. He whispers her name, as though one word can warm her, can protect her, can promise that the sapling she planted for Seranni will remain lonely for years and years to come. 

She doesn’t reply in words—because there are no words to say—but she presses herself up and into him, fisting her hands in his hair, her mouth both soft and hard, warm and cold against his. Then silently she pulls away and turns to go, joining her waiting expedition, and soon she’s swallowed up in the sea of blue and silver as it disappears down the path.

The rain continues to fall long after she’s gone.


	20. Tongue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kiss meme prompt: "Then there's tongue."

Velanna isn’t used to taking anything slowly. From the time she was a little girl, sitting at Ilshae’s side and staring at old scraps of parchment until her eyes ached, she’s always wanted to _go_ , to _do_ , to master every task before her as quickly as possible. It had come hand in hand with being the First. The leader of her people would be expected to act decisively and with authority, not to sit around contemplating her navel all the time. 

But with Nathaniel, everything is infuriatingly different. The human just has to go and—and do what humans _do_ , turn everything upside down, make her mind and her body constantly at war with each other. Even something as basic as _kissing_ isn’t simple anymore. 

The first few are awkward at best, little more than a brief mashing of lips and clacking of teeth before she darts away, muttering and wrapping her arms tight around herself, refusing to even look at him. Eventually she becomes comfortable enough to linger a bit longer, even letting her lips part a little, consciously relaxing instead of going stiff as a corpse every time he lowers his mouth to hers. 

It isn’t that she doesn’t _want_ to kiss him. His mere proximity makes her heart quicken, sending an indescribable feeling coursing through her blood—strange and warm and unfamiliar, but not at all unwelcome. Yet every time she feels his mouth open against hers, an unassuming invitation for more, she hears a chorus of angry disappointed voices cry out in protest in her mind—all the gods and her clan and her parents and Ilshae, and Seranni worst of all—and her teeth slam shut like a trap snapping on her ankle. 

And she curls into herself and waits, miserably, for his patience to run dry, for him to decide she’s not worth the trouble. Just like her clan. Just like Ilshae. 

But he doesn’t, unfathomable human that he is, and finally Velanna decides enough is enough. 

She marches up to him with purpose in her eyes, grabs his tunic in one hand and buries the other in his hair, and pulls his head down to hers. It starts slow, like all the others before it, but then she nips at his mouth and tips her head back, extending an invitation of her own.

When he accepts, it takes her a moment to remember how to breathe. She always used to scoff when people described their lovers as tasting of mint or strawberries or whatever romantic nonsense, but somehow Nathaniel’s mouth on hers makes her think of pine and leather and the forest and _home_ —so achingly familiar that for just a moment she forgets his humanity altogether.

And the angry voices quiet to a rumbling murmur, fading to the back of her mind.


	21. Fist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Kiss With a Fist."

Her thrashing wakes him in the middle of the night, an elbow connecting solidly with his ribs, and he pushes himself upright with a groan. 

“What is it?” he begins to mutter, still half-asleep and bleary, until his eyes adjust to the darkness and he realizes she’s ensnared in yet another nightmare. Her limbs go rigid beneath the sheet, as though freezing in a battle stance, and her breaths come in quick, sharp rattles. 

Nathaniel sighs and leans out of bed, igniting the candle on the nightstand. Both the light and his movement fail to pierce through Velanna’s dream, and her head whips back, eyes still closed and lips stretched tight in a grimace. She mutters something unintelligible but harsh, the sheets crumpling in her fists, and for a moment Nathaniel fears she’ll set fire to them in her sleep. 

“Velanna,” he whispers, gently grasping her shoulder. “Velanna, wake up.”

She bolts upright far faster than he anticipated, eyes wild and furious in the candlelight, and by the time he sees her arm moving, it’s too late. He can do no more than wince before her knuckles slam against his face with a meaty _thwack_. 

The room turns dim and bleary again, but this time it has nothing to do with sleep’s too-tight grasp. Vaguely, he finds himself sprawled back on the mattress, staring up at the sparks of light that seem to dance on the ceiling. 

“Oh,” he hears Velanna say. She sounds stricken. 

“'Oh,' indeed,” he tries to reply, but it comes out as an incoherent mumble. He raises a hand to his face, works his jaw, and tries again. “Maker’s breath. You hit like a cannonball.” 

“I was having a _nightmare_ ,” she says defensively. “I was fighting an ogre.”

He props himself up on one elbow, wincing at the throbbing beneath his eye. “And your first instinct was to punch it?”

“I had to improvise. Your face just happened to be in the way.” She bites down on her lower lip before leaning over him, fingertips gingerly brushing his skin. “There?”

He nods, rueful. “Shall we wager as to how big the bruise will be in the morning?”

“It was an _accident._ ” She huffs out a sigh and bends down, brushing little fluttering kisses over his cheekbone, so light he can barely feel them. 

“It still hurts,” he grumbles. “More kisses are in order, I think.” 

“Needy human,” she says with a roll of her eyes, but she obliges anyway.


	22. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love Me: write a fluffy ficlet about two (or more) characters.

After miles and miles of stomping through crumbling tunnels and stumbling over grinning skeletons, interrupted every few minutes by bands of snarling darkspawn, Velanna wants nothing more than to curl up in her tent and let the world disappear for a few precious hours. 

She’s more relieved than she cares to admit when the party finally stops in a small room branching off one tunnel, the space illuminated by a lyrium vein that bisects the wall and stretches spindly fingers into the ceiling. Its light falls on the other Wardens, casting their skin and eyes in an eerie blue glow, and her chest tightens like a fist as she remembers Seranni’s pallid face and clouded-over gaze.

She turns away, swaying, and grinds her knuckles against her eyelids. 

Nathaniel’s hand on her shoulder is a familiar weight, brief but comforting, and she lets herself linger for a moment before she moves away to start the campfire. Behind her, she hears rustling fabric and muted conversation as the others erect the tents, and her mind begins to drift. 

“Velanna?”

The word echoes, once, then twice before it fully registers, and she frowns.

“What?” she mutters, turning to look over her shoulder. Her muscles protest at the movement, and she realizes she’s still crouched in front of the fire, joints aching from hours of travel and combat. 

“The tent is up,” Nathaniel says. His armor is gone, replaced by a simple tunic, and his hair falls loose around his shoulders. “Come get some sleep.”

Velanna pulls herself to her feet, the Deep Roads blurring in a haze of dust and lyrium as her eyelids grow heavier. She senses Nathaniel come alongside her, his hand trailing down her back, and hears his quiet voice next to her ear.

“I love you,” he says. 

Velanna stops dead in her tracks. 

“You…” she says. She raises both hands to clutch at her ears, half-convinced she couldn’t possibly have just heard that. “What? You—I—you don’t—”

He stops in front of the tent with his hand resting on the flap, and she stares at him, her jaw bobbing up and down like dishes in a washbasin. 

“Don’t _do_ that.” A prickly flush settles on her skin, pinching and poking as though she’s a brand-new First again, gangly and awkward with ears too big and temper too hot. “You don’t—I—we’re already sleeping together. You don’t have to—to—” She throws both hands in the air. “If you want something from me, just say it.”

It isn’t until she runs out of words that she notices him watching her, a little crease between his brows. 

“Velanna,” he says, “do you consider me the type of person who would hand out false declarations of love in exchange for sexual favors?”

She stalls and mutters, pulling her arms tight around herself, but she already knows her answer. “No.”

“Good.” He pushes back the tent flap and stands before the entrance, still watching her.

“But then—” she begins. One foot taps uncontrollably against the tunnel floor. “That would mean…?”

“Yes,” he says. 

The Deep Roads are spinning, or perhaps it’s her head. She feels herself swaying in place again, shock and incomprehension and something else—something deep and fluttery and impossibly _warm_ —all struggling to push back the tide of fatigue. 

“My timing was poor, I see,” Nathaniel says. His dry chuckle brings her back, rooting her to the ground. “Trust me to finally say the words just as you’re about to pass out from exhaustion.”

He extends his hand, still holding back the tent flap with the other. “Will you come to bed? We can talk about it in the morning.”

She frowns, even as she reaches out. His gloves are long since shed, and his bare fingers are warm as they twine with hers. 

“We’re in the Deep Roads,” she points out tartly, following him inside. “There is no morning here.”

He stretches out on the waiting bedroll and she follows him down, letting him tug her into his arms. Her head nestles in the hollow between his neck and shoulder, and she feels his breath ruffle her hair. 

“In that case,” he murmurs, “we’ll talk about it whenever you’re ready.”

“Fine,” she begins to say, but finds the word swallowed up in a tremendous yawn instead. Nathaniel laughs, his chest vibrating against her, and she drifts into sleep with his heartbeat in her ears and his fingers in her hair.


	23. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one doesn't fit any particular prompt, but continues on directly from the last chapter.

Nathaniel dreams of battle, darkspawn roars deafening in narrow corridors, blood on his face and dust in his mouth. He presses forward with his lips set in a grim line, his quiver bleeding arrows, until at last he reaches the dragon pacing at the end of the tunnel.

He releases his breath slowly, drawing another arrow and aiming it between the dragon’s glittering eyes. The beast turns toward him, tendrils of smoke rising from its nostrils, massive jaws parting to reveal teeth sharp enough to crunch his bones like twigs. 

“Nathaniel,” it says.

He freezes, eyes wide, and the arrow jitters with his sudden tension. 

“ _Nathaniel,_ ” the dragon speaks again, more insistent this time, and thunders toward him with the ground shaking under its feet. “Nathaniel, wake up.”

He rears back when it lowers its head and jabs him in the chest with its nose, and the bow drops from his hands to clatter on the floor, the arrow skittering out of reach. 

“What—” he begins to mutter, until another adamant poke jerks him from sleep. The dragon and the Deep Roads melt away, replaced by his tent’s dim interior and a scowling blonde elf with incredibly sharp fingernails. 

“Finally,” she huffs, and the poking ceases. She begins to withdraw her hand, then falters, fingers hovering for a moment before she rests them almost tentatively on his chest. 

“What is it?” Nathaniel mumbles, already listening for the sounds of approaching darkspawn. “Under attack?”

“No, and keep your voice down,” Velanna hisses in a whisper. “Everyone else is still asleep. Don’t go waking them up. We…we need to talk, and I don’t want to be interrupted.”

Nathaniel groans, letting his head fall back against the bedroll. “Talk about what?”

She taps her fingers on his chest in a rapid, nervous motion before jerking her hand away, refusing to meet his eyes. “About…what you said.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be a bit more specific,” he says, deadpan. “I may not chatter quite as much as Sigrun, but it’s a fair bet I’ve spoken more than one or two sentences in my lifetime.”

“Now you’re being deliberately obtuse.” She crosses her arms over her chest, shoulders hunched, glaring at him through sleep-tousled bangs. 

“No.” He draws out the word with exaggerated patience. “You woke me up out of a dead sleep for some discussion of apparently grave importance, but you won’t tell me what it is. I can’t read your mind, Velanna. I don’t practice blood magic.”

“You said you…” She trails off, and he can hear her teeth grinding in the sudden quiet. “You said we could talk about it when I was ready, and I don’t want to do that in front of everyone else—it’s so hard to get any privacy when we’re on missions; I don’t know why you had to go and say it when we’re in the middle of the Deep Roads—”

_Oh._

“You’re right,” he says, interrupting the tumbled words. “It was foolish of me. Maker knows what I was thinking.”

He hears her mouth snap shut, breath cut off with a small strangled noise. A long moment passes before she speaks again, her voice choked and bitter. “And here I thought this time might be different. You must take great pleasure in making a fool out of me, human.”

Regret burns the back of his throat like too much ale, and he sighs, finally lifting his head to look at her. She sits angled away from him with her eyes fixed on the floor and her knees drawn up to her chest, her fingernails making dents in her skin. 

“I didn’t mean that,” he says quietly.

Velanna snorts. “Which part?”

Angry red streaks mar her ears even in the tent’s dull light, and she still refuses to glance in his direction. Nathaniel presses his thumb and forefinger against his temples. 

“Could we start this conversation again?” he asks. “Now that I’m somewhat more awake?”

She gives no answer aside from a grunt, and he lets out a breath. _Better than setting me on fire, I suppose._

“What did you mean,” he begins, “when you said you thought this time might be different?”

She makes a sound like a muffled snarl. “Is this the part where you interrogate me about all my former lovers?”

“No interrogations,” he says. “But I’ll listen if you want to talk.”

She jerks around to stare at him, her eyes green and bright in the dark like a cat. “What do you think I meant?” she spits out the words. “The woman who trained me from my childhood doesn’t want me around her anymore. Neither does my clan. My own sister ran off to follow a darkspawn instead of coming with me. Only a fool would expect my lovers to be any different.”

He shakes his head, feeling his expression soften. “I’m still here, Velanna.”

“For now.” Her shoulders droop, and she looks away again, her chin tilted downward. “Until you tire of sleeping with me, or decide I’m too shrill and hateful to keep around.”

“Someone said that to you?” he asks, already knowing the answer.

“More than one someone. Among other things.” She growls under her breath. “There haven’t been many, but…they’ve always _wanted_ something. Favor with Ilshae, or higher status in the clan, or to win a wager with their friends. Sometimes just sex.” 

“That’s why you reacted the way you did,” Nathaniel guesses. “When I told you I loved you.”

She shoots him another glance, her lip curling. “Did you think I would melt into your arms like a blushing maiden? No one’s ever said that to me and meant it. Except Seranni.” She pauses, her eyes losing focus. “And my parents, I suppose…a long time ago.”

Silence falls, long and deep enough for him to hear the campfire’s quiet crackling outside the tent. Velanna sighs, leaning forward until her forehead rests on her knees.

“May I tell you something?” Nathaniel finally asks, and though he keeps his voice low, Velanna still tenses.

“What?” she mutters, almost resigned. 

“I can’t promise you that our relationship will always be smooth and uncomplicated,” he says. “Or that I’ll never upset you, or that we’ll never misunderstand each other. But I can promise you that I’ve never lied to you, or tried to trick you. And I never will.”

He pauses, waiting until she seeks his eyes in the dark.

“I want nothing more from you than what you’re willing to give,” he says quietly. “That’s always been the case.”

She holds his gaze, her expression unreadable, until at long last her mouth shifts in the tiniest smirk.

“I’m still not going to swoon into your arms,” she says pointedly.

Nathaniel can’t hold back a snort of laughter. “If you did, I would wonder if you’d been possessed by a demon.”

Her smirk widens, and she shakes her head. “Very well, human. Go back to sleep. Since I so rudely interrupted you, I’ll take the next watch.”

She pushes herself up on her hands and knees, hesitating a moment before she darts forward to press her lips to his. The kiss is quick and sharp, and then she pulls away, disappearing through the tent flap before he can reach for her. 

He lies back on the bedroll and presses his lips together, listening as the campfire drowns out her fading footsteps.


	24. Heal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "nurse me: write a ficlet about one character healing another."

“You have to do _something_ for him,” Velanna insists. 

The healer sighs, pointedly not looking at the elf, stirring up poultices and lining them neatly in the cupboard. “I have done something,” she says with exaggerated patience. “I gave him a draught to ease his symptoms. His breathing is already less labored. All that’s left now is to wait for his body to heal itself the rest of the way.”

“But why is it even necessary to wait?” Velanna throws up her hands. “Why let him lie there suffering when you could easily use your magic to heal him in a matter of moments?”

The healer mixes a poultice, counts to five, and mixes another one. 

“Because,” she says, “in cases like this, magic can actually be a hindrance instead of a help. The body is remarkably resilient on its own, Velanna. It can recover from a vast array of injuries and diseases with little to no assistance from magic at all. Nathaniel is currently suffering from a fever, with nausea and body aches. I’m not denying that it’s not very comfortable, but it’s also far from life-threatening.”

Velanna heaves a sigh, the gust of her breath forceful enough to set one of the half-filled poultices to teetering. “I still didn’t hear a reason why magical healing would be _harmful_ in this case,” she says, tone pointed.

“It may not seem so at first,” the healer says, “but we’ve found that when exposed to too much unnecessary healing magic, the body can come to rely on it instead of on its own immune system. In other words, it begins to expect that every little cold, bump and bruise will be easily dispelled by magic, so it atrophies.”

She finally looks over at Velanna, smirking. “You don’t want Nathaniel to atrophy, do you?”

It’s fascinating, watching the play of emotions across the elf’s face. First she blinks, then frowns, then huffs and crosses her arms, all in the space of mere seconds. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she mutters. “He’s not going to—to _atrophy_ if you take away his fever just this one time.”

“Ah, but it won’t be just this one time, will it?” The healer shakes her index finger as though scolding a naughty child, rather enjoying the way Velanna’s face reddens in response. “The next time he gets sick, you’ll come bullying me again, telling me I should use my magic on him, ‘just this once.’”

“I’m not _bullying_ , I’m simply—” She comes to an abrupt stop, the rest of the words swallowed up in a pained sigh. Her shoulders slump, and for a moment it almost seems to the healer that her ears are drooping.

The healer echoes the sigh, and some of her irritation fades. 

“I know,” she says, softening her voice with an effort. “You’re just worried about him.”

Velanna’s eyes dart to hers, her chin rising, then falling. It’s not quite a nod, but it’s close enough.

“I almost tried to heal him myself.” The admission is little more than a mumble, so quiet the healer leans in to hear her. “But healing magic has never exactly been my best talent.”

It’s a strong contender for understatement of the year, but the healer holds her tongue.

“Every mage has her own strengths and weaknesses,” she says instead, delicately. “But there are other ways you can help Nathaniel while he recovers. Make sure he drinks plenty of liquids and takes all his medicine when he’s supposed to, and keep plenty of warm blankets on hand.” A small smile glints in her eye. “And convince him to stay in bed when he stubbornly declares he’s all better and wants to return to his duties.”

Velanna crosses her arms and shifts in place, eyes drifting off to one side. “I’ve never been the best at playing nursemaid,” she mutters. “But…I did assist Ils—my clan’s Keeper at times when she was tending to the sick. I suppose I can handle this.”

“That’s good,” the healer encourages. “In all honesty, aside from plenty of rest and fluids, just having you near him is probably what’s best for him now.”

It’s the point in the conversation where the typical patient’s loved one smiles and nods their understanding, but Velanna is far from typical. She cocks her head, mouth puckering in confusion. 

“My presence has never been a help to anyone,” she says. It’s a statement of fact more than one of self-pity, only the smallest hint of bitterness threading its way through the words. 

The healer regards her, eyes narrowed in thought, until Velanna begins to fidget and scowl under the scrutiny. 

“Well,” the healer finally says, “us humans have a saying: there’s a first time for everything. And perhaps that’s the beauty of being a Warden—it’s a second chance, a new start for each of us.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call anything related to the Wardens _beautiful_ ,” Velanna snorts, but she accepts the potions from the healer’s outstretched hand. “I’ll make sure he takes all of these. I’ll pour them down his throat myself if I have to.”

She begins to turn toward the door, medicines cradled in her hands like treasure, then pauses and clears her throat.

“Sometimes I can be a bit…overly demanding,” she says. The words are reluctant but genuine, her voice almost gruff.

The healer smiles. 

“All is well,” she says. “You’re willing to fight for the ones you love. That is an admirable trait.” 

The elf takes a quick breath, opening her mouth as though to argue. She shuffles the potions, glaring down at them and muttering. 

“I…suppose,” she murmurs, almost to herself. “Perhaps.”

The healer watches as she disappears through the door.


End file.
